Arizona law prompts action from teams

If you're fearful of the horrors that might befall an 18-year-old Dominican baseball player who gets apprehended in the police state of Arizona, be calm.

The Angels are 90 feet ahead of you.

"All of our players will have Arizona ID cards," said Abe Flores, the Angels farm director. "And when they're playing for our (Rookie League) team over there this summer, they will have three contact numbers: Mine, (manager) Tyrone Boykin's, and (facility director) Eric Blum's.

"Most of them already carry around a document that identifies them as a professional baseball player. People talk about carrying passports, but now you run into a problem in case they get lost. So we've prepared as best we can and, if somebody has a better idea, we'd love to hear it."

That does not help those who actually live in Arizona year-round and have to measure every step they take, in the wake of the anti-immigration law that Gov. Jan Brewer signed last month.

But it does soothe those who envisioned Erick Aybar or Bobby Abreu being shoved into the back of a cruiser, just as they're entering the What-A-Burger around the corner from Tempe Diablo Stadium.

Besides, Arizona was embarrassed enough by House Bill 1070 to temper it, as well.

House Bill 2162 clarifies the issue and says police can only inquire about the immigration status of those they stop, detain and arrest. The original bill said police could do so upon "contact."

Had Arizona not edited this bill that Brewer signed a week after the celebration of Jackie Robinson's first Dodgers game, Major League Baseball should have immediately relocated its 14 Arizona spring training sites and deprived the state of untold millions.

Mindful of that and other economic threats, Arizona did modify its stance.

But that does not mean the players are safe from such intrusions. Now it's up to the ballclubs to take the same initiative the Angels did.

As police officers inside Arizona fumed over the impracticality of the bill, the World Boxing Council threatened to withhold its fighters from Arizona, and the Phoenix Suns wore "Los Suns" on their jerseys when they played the San Antonio Spurs in a playoff game Wednesday.

The players' union promised "additional steps" to protect the athletes, and there were protests against the Arizona Diamondbacks when they played at Chicago last week.

(There would be even louder protests if the Diamondbacks made the World Series. Fortunately, current Diamondbacks management has already taken extreme measures to prevent that.)

Adrian Gonzalez, the Padres first baseman who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, told the San Diego Union Tribune that the bill was "immoral" and wondered, "Are they going to pass out a picture saying 'You should look like this and you're fine,' but if you don't, do people have the right to question you? That's profiling."

"It's not fair for a young guy to come from South America," said catcher Yorvit Torrealba, a Venezuelan, "and, just because he has a strong accent, he has to prove whether he's illegal or not. I come from a crazy country. Now Arizona seems a little bit more crazy."

"But if you're playing here and you have your visa, it identifies you and what you're doing here," said pitcher Edward Mujica, another Venezuelan, on Monday. "As long as you have it with you, you should be fine."

Boxing promoter Lou DiBella said Wednesday the law "is an affront to what America stands for" and urged other promoters to boycott the state.

On "Inside The NBA" on TNT, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley discussed whether athletes should speak of politics. They concluded that, since Muhammad Ali did, they should.

They're right. But this is not about politics.

Everyone knows the immigration policy must be modernized and everyone also knows that Washington lacks the spine or the pragmatism to do it.

Everyone is also mindful that southern Arizona is a dangerous place and that the murder of rancher Robert Krentz was a trigger for the signing of the bill.

Krentz was shot while sitting in his ATV. There has been no reliable word about a suspect, but the furor obviously prompted Brewer to sign 1070, especially since she is running against more conservative Republicans in the gubernatorial primary.

One can be dead-set against amnesty or even a guest-worker program and defend those positions rationally. In fact, there should be a series of public debates about immigration. That's pure America.

What isn't pure America is the act of questioning people, especially teenage baseball players who, after all, have been brought here to fill stadiums and increase franchise values, on the basis of their appearance and speech.

Just because your hair and your clothes make you resemble those who commit horrible crimes and ruin millions of lives is no reason to be categorized.